News in a Nutshell – April 21

No time to read the news this week? No worries, we’ve got you covered. Just one minute with the Localiiz news roundup and you’ll have all you need to appear up-to-the-minute and worldly-wise when out and about this weekend – well, almost.

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The King is Dead

Dubbed by many as the “King of Robbers”, notorious assault-rifle-wielding career thief Yip Kai-foon has died of cancer this week. Yip, 55, masterminded a series of armed robberies of jewellery shops in the 80s and 90s and has become something of a cultural icon in his own right. Not only was he widely known and feared for cutting about with an assault rifle, Yip was also something of an escape artist, eluding capture for almost seven years and amassing a bounty of one million dollars at one point.More on/supplemental to this story:

Guo West

Mainland tycoon Guo Wengui has this week become the showpiece in a cavalcade of political and corporate intrigue, espionage, midnight running, whatever you want to call it. After fleeing the mainland, Wengui says Beijing’s agents have ramped up efforts to stop him from “leaking explosive information” after his live interview with the US government-funded Voice of America was cut short. The programme’s hosts told viewers that Chinese officials had summoned the media organisation’s representatives in Beijing to warn them against airing the program and giving Guo – who is suspected of bribing a former top official in China’s intelligence service – a platform to air unsubstantiated allegations.

Democratic Acrobatics

After making a big song and dance this week suggesting that incoming chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor should pardon protesters of the Occupy movement, the police officers who beat an activist, and a retired officer currently on trial, Democratic Party chairman Wu Chi-wai totally capitulated and apologised for his “reckless words and behavior”, just 12 hours after Ming Pao newspaper reported his suggestion yesterday. Someone’s had a word.

Putting the S in SAR

Tang Kwai-sze, a dying mother whose desperate hunt for an organ donor – a hunt lead by her 17-year-old daughter, Michelle, who had wanted to donate her own liver but was three months shy of the legal age – aroused deep public sympathy across Hong Kong this week. As a result, a 26-year-old woman came forward in response to the appeal, giving Tang a lifeline. She is now showing signs of recovery after the liver transplant.

Swear by the MTR

Hong Kong’s railway operator is proposing to show more tolerance towards passengers swearing on trains and lift a ban on filming with mobile phones under a long-overdue review of its decades-old by-laws. A key proposal is to relax curbs on abusive language, which would be limited to more offensive and malicious cases that might annoy or disturb passengers. So, if you’re going to call someone an a******e, do it nicely and quietly and you should be fine.